The Journey after One Young World

Over a year on from One Young World 2016, Acuity catches up with Charles Zhang, co-founder of Journey Crowdfunding.

In Brief

Attending the One Young World summit in Ottawa, Canada in 2016 changed Charles Zhang’s life.

He met his company co-founder there.

They co-founded a social enterprise called Journey Crowdfunding.

“It was all very dramatic if I’m honest,” laughs
22-year-old Charles Zhang as he looks back on his One Young World experience.

While finishing his University of Sydney commerce
degree in 2016, Charles entered the Grad Connection Top 100 Future Leaders
Awards. He won the CA ANZ-sponsored Accounting and Financial Management Award –
and with it, a trip to Ottawa, Canada for the One Young World leadership forum.

It was an experience, he says, that was life-changing.

Each year, One Young World summit gathers thousands of
young leaders from across the world, for discussions and sessions with leaders
from former UN head Kofi Annan to digital media entrepreneur Michelle Phan.

But it was his interactions with two fellow delegates
that would have real lasting impact for Zhang. One would go on to co-found his
company Journey Crowdfunding with him, while the other, a young man from Sierra
Leone, would change his perspective on life.

“I was fortunate enough to meet this young man from
Sierra Leone,” explains Charles. The young man was P.J. Cole. He grew up
working with child soldiers and opened an emergency response clinic during the
Ebola crisis. His work won him a Queen’s Young Leader Award.
“Speaking to him completely transformed my perception
of what was possible for a young person to achieve. He’s done things at such a
significant level.

“He’s making such a difference in these people’s
lives, so it was very compelling,” says Zhang.

The
start of Journey

The three-day event was a humbling experience and a
chance to discuss issues such as global warming. “One of the speakers was from
Marshall Islands in the Pacific. They are already experiencing severe flooding
and they were chatting about how their island is going to disappear. That was
such a frank reality,” he reflects.

With so many inspiring people gathered in one place,
One Young World is the perfect opportunity to network and make lifelong
connections. It was through this that Zhang met his future business partner,
Michelle Aneli.

“She had the connections and thought it was a great
idea. She worked in an organisation that works with refugees and she said: ‘let’s
make this happen’.”

‘This’ was Journey Crowdfunding, which Zhang and Aneli
launched on 1 February last year, with the help of two other business partners,
Angus Gibbs and Sajith Howpage.

(Pictured: Charles Zhang, Co-founder of Journey Crowdfunding)

The company is a social funding platform which
partners with social organisations to tell stories online about worthwhile
projects, which then attract investment from members of the public. Charles
likens it to the famed Humans of New York
photoblog – “but you can donate straight to the individual”.

While at One Young World in 2016, he pitched the
social enterprise to an organisation called The Resolution Project. The pitch
was a success and the company offered some seed funding to get Journey up and
running.

In the months following One Young World, Zhang and his
business partners signed partnerships with two social organisations and were
able to officially launch in Sydney in February with four crowdfunding
campaigns. “We are currently partnered with migrant and refugee organisations
and I think we are on our way to helping some very deserving people,” says Zhang.

Looking back on his pitch, Zhang says it was important
not to be intimidated by the huge scale of the One Young World event. “There
are some seriously intelligent, capable and well-connected people. It’s
important to trade your ideas and not be scared to speak to other people about
theirs,” he says.

Accountants are absolutely pivotal in effecting change in the worldCharles Zhang Co-founder of Journey Crowdfunding

Zhang believes he built the foundations for a career
in accounting and business when he worked as an accounting cadet in EY. He then
moved to online food delivery company Deliveroo, where he spent a year on the operations
team.

Those experiences also gave him a new view of
accounting’s power as a tool for transformation. “I’ve really learned that
businesses shape the world. Accountants all over the world are charged with
driving and leading these businesses.

“Accountants are in a very unique and extraordinary
position to use their skills and leadership to effect positive change. So it is
at the individual level, the company level and I think that accumulates to be
at a global level. Accountants are absolutely pivotal in effecting change in
the world.”

Resilience
makes a business

When it came to setting up his own business however, it wasn’t all plain sailing. There were plenty of times he felt like calling it quits. But it was in those moments that Zhang learnt the biggest lessons about business.

“There were so many points we wanted to throw in the
towel, moments where the next step or the answer to a problem wasn’t clear.
Nonetheless, we continued to show up day after day and the answer soon
appeared. Beyond any technical skill, I learnt that resilience is the key
determinant of entrepreneurial success.”

Passing
the reins

After some travelling around the world, Zhang has returned home to Sydney to start a management consulting role at LEK. So he and the other
business partners have decided to pass on the reigns of Journey to Enactus, a
student organisation that brings university students and staff together with
businesses to develop community outreach projects.

He plans to continue working with Journey but describes
Enactus as “stellar” and sees a continuing evolution for the organisation. “The
goal, as it always has been, is to help as many people as possible. That means
transitioning from working just with migrants and refugees to actually working
with homeless individuals and families as well.

“Of course the dream is to be Australia’s go-to social
funding for individuals. But that is five years away.”

He advises other aspiring young business leaders to go
for it. “I was very hesitant to begin with, but the moment I got started on
even the smallest steps towards starting the business, I realised that it
wasn’t as hard as I’d made it out to be. Plus, you’ll find that once you get
the ball rolling, support is surprisingly abundant.”